LULUCF Monitoring and Reporting Systems for Turkey

GeoVille is delighted to announce the final implementation of the Land Use Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) Monitoring and Reporting System for Turkey. The new satellite-based monitoring system eliminates many of the previous shortcomings in the estimation of national Activity Data (AD) and the reporting system facilitates the calculation and reporting of all LULUCF GHG emissions and removals.

Basis of the system are free and available Landsat data, but the system is also designed for future continuation based on the Sentinel program. To date, the system has been used to produce national LULUCF maps for 1990, 2000, and 2015 as well as annual AD for the 26 years from 1990 until 2015 (incl.) derived from advanced change detection algorithms operating on the entire Landsat archive available for Turkey (total raw data approx. 20TB). In addition, Turkey´s various ecozones and forest districts have been taken into consideration to allow for very detailed LULUCF activity data reporting. 

Due to the large volume of information contained in the well over 750.000 distinct combinations of ecozone, forest district, LULUCF class, and transition stage, the data is delivered as a database embedded into a newly designed LULUCF reporting system. Apart from the AD derived from the monitoring system, the database stores all Emission Factors (EF) and ancillary data associated with GHG reporting from the LULUCF sector and provides archiving functionality and versioning support for all relevant documentation such as reports, references, work plans, and CRF submissions to the United Nations (UNFCCC)). It facilitates the calculations of GHG emissions and removals tailored to Turkey´s reporting requirements and produces the output in the UNFCCC submission format (CRF). The Reporting System is a browser-based application that allow the experts to:

• query all information contained within the LULUCF database (e.g. AD, EF, documentation, GIS data, etc.)
• manage and enter new data into the system
• archive all documentation related to LULUCF GHG reporting (past and present)
• perform all GHG emission/removal calculations and adapt the formulas/parameters as needed (to adhere to future changes in reporting requirements)
• upload future LULUCF maps and automatically calculate all AD areas and transitions (GIS operation)
• convert all GHG emissions/removals into the UNFCCC reporting format

Turkey is now well equipped with a robust and proven monitoring and reporting system that is designed for utilization with current and future satellite sensors producing consistent, reliable and complete AD estimates that all Green House Gases (GHG) emissions are calculated from.

In general, the LULUCF sector in the GHG reporting to the United Nations (UN) covers the emissions and removals of GHG gases from the natural environment managed by humans (environment with anthropogenic impact). For that purpose, the entire country area is classified into a set of 11 Activity Data (AD) classes (e.g. managed wetland, unmanaged wetland, annual cropland, settlements, etc.) on an annual basis. The transitions from one class to another between the years are recorded continuously so that for every year a matrix of LULUCF classes is available for land remaining and land converting between classes. This area information is then multiplied with Emission Factors (EF) that are available for every LULUCF class and the transitions between them.

For more information please contact us!